Interview Series: Interview with Dave Norman!

So I've known Dave Norman for sometime now. Dave, before I knew him, was always known to me as, "Lauren's friends Dave." Now I can proudly call him my friend Dave too! He's magnificent, an accomplished author, a kick ass paintballer, wonderful devoted husband, and daddy extraordinaire! 

One of my favorite books by him is called 'Following Josh.' You can find it here: Following-Josh

He also has written several other books including: White-River-Junctions

I decided to start this series to encompass more than the scope of just this blog. Our life is unfiltered, so why not encompass my friends into it as well. In this series you'll hear from all walks of life. All of these people are my friends, and they ALL inspire me EVERYDAY to reach for what is just beyond my reach, to grow, to stretch, and to get out of my comfort zone. These fine people have done those things, and have flourished! Their lives more colorful, more full, because they choose to take chances. I hope that you all enjoy this added bit of flavor to our usual rhetoric of recipes, science projects, projects, and general thoughts thrown onto a page that lands far off somewhere in the black hole of the interwebs. By the way, Dave is a professional writer, so everyone going after him, don't be intimidated. *Laughing* You all were asked to participate because you bring your own awesomeness to the table!

On that note I give you Dave:

Interview Q & A:

For photos of the book covers, etc, please check out:

http://www.f64publishing.com/media.html

Me: Who are you and what do you do?

Dave: Dave Norman. Author, editor, photographer, publisher.

Me: Why are you passionate about the work that you do?

Dave: It inspires me, and makes me truly feel alive. It requires me to take a close look at relationships, philosophies, cause-and-effect in everyday life and the development of societies, science, nature…basically, to write well, I must see, hear, smell, touch, and taste, well…with a deeper understanding of what’s actually going on around me. That helps me be better connected to the world, more conscientious in my relationships, and more observant overall. Before you can create a believable story, or accurately tell a true tale, you need to understand as much as possible about the story, its characters, its setting, and the world in which it operates. You also need to understand what lead up to the story you tell, and the implications of its content on what happens next. Then, you aren’t telling an isolated, esoteric tale—you’re talking about the result of something, which itself is plugged into what happens next, and your story is not only better informed, but more useful…and much more engaging. As I primarily work in narrative nonfiction, that means constantly developing my understanding of the world around me, its history, and the cause and effect that have gotten us “here” so I can better understand where we might be going—then, I can tell the story in a moment caught between its past and its future. The practical effect of this beyond my writing is that I see, hear, notice, and interpret things that often seem to completely pass my friends and family by. I have lots of “ah-ha!” moments, and often when sharing them, get to watch dawning understanding wash over people’s faces. It’s cool to be the first to make a connection or notice something peculiar, but it’s also saved me from accidents on the road, kept me safe as a bicyclist, etc. It boils down to “thinking about things way too much.” It also means that I’m something of a bon vivant…which is pretty enjoyable, too. It’s all part of the same psychosis. Safe driver, wine/beer connoisseur, over-thinking nerd, hyper-vigilant hunter, author... It’s all related.

Me: What’s your background?

Dave: Currently behind me are two windows that open onto woods, but I don’t see how that’s important—we’re writing, not taking my photo. (If we were, I’d be horribly backlit.)

Me: What’s integral to doing the work that you are passionate about?

Dave: Research, introspection, conversation, and quiet, un-bothered time to process it all. The uninterrupted time is, as a father and family man, the hardest part. In order to develop themes, tie up storylines (that’s not just a fiction technique!), and work with subtlety, I need to be able to read, write, and edit, my work without interruption—that often means working for 6 to 10 hours at a stretch, and in some stages of editing, 12 or more hours (eating at my desk, etc). Finding that amount of time with a child and family is…sometimes a challenge. Otherwise, research, which for me involves travel, adventures, lots of time in libraries, and frequently, interviews with people. I dig the interviews. I self-identify as an introvert, but some of my favorite aspects of writing involve the interviews that comprise a lot of my research. (See my book “White River Junctions,” which is conceptually half comprised of the life stories of four people who self-identify as Vermonters—we explore themes of identity and cultural inclusion as we look at their stories of playing fiddle in speakeasies, teaching gym class, riding the rails, etc.)

Me: What has been a strong influencer in your experience?

Dave: Lots of things, people, and experience. Specific names: editors Dan Reeves and Jessica Sparks, college professor Dr. David Collins, business owner Sal Briguglio, pioneers in actual adventure and self-invention Bill Norman and Herb Schueler, etc. So far as influential experiences: working at an international paintball magazine, traveling widely as a child, and perhaps most of all: having my first (hilariously disastrous) international experience coincide with my first deep love and my worst physical injury to date, set in the hills of Germany at merely 16 years old. That trip pretty much sealed my fate as an artist. I haven’t really stood a chance at normal employment, or temperament, since.

Me: Explain what you do in 100 words. (Thirteen words will do Dave)

Dave: I write, and I defy arbitrary orders. Thirteen words. Take that, insolent question!

Me: How has your practice change over time?

Dave: I’ve gotten slightly better at it. I’ve gotten far more jaded by it, and with it. But I can’t stop now any more than when I was a kid, doing it for free for kicks; now I make slightly more money than when I was doing it for free, and I do it for much more deeply-invested personal and spiritual reasons.

Me:What art/writing/people/traveling do you most identify with?

Dave: The writing of: Hunter S. Thompson, Bill Bryson, Tim Cahill, Gay Talese, and Steve Almond. For artists: I identify a bit with Damien Hirst, with the appropriate amount of jealousy and self-aggrandizement present in claiming to identify with anyone who is infinitely more successful with their art than I am with my own. He is an artist with a punchy sense of humor who has turned the creation of his art into a business with employees and lots of income and a delicious amount of pompous antagonism that he can only get away with because of his success…thus, the pomposity of his persona and some of his art (a whole bull in a tank of formaldehyde? As art? For millions of dollars? Wow… Well played, dude) is a direct reflection of the prior success that makes even the punchy ironic stuff successful—it’s not art itself, in the classic sense, but something he gets away with as a the result of his success, which imbues it with a kind of character and artistry that is successful only because he’s already successful. He can get away with it, because he’s gotten away with it, and because he started by having some genuinely great work receive proper attention in the market. In my significantly lesser way, I’ve been able to sell some tossed-off side pieces (pieces I just did for the money and fun but which I don’t count towards my “art”) for more than they’re worth because I’ve also done some much better pieces. In its simplest form, this looks a lot like selling out, and capitalizing on half-assed work. But look at what makes that work: it works because the person has already produced something of value, had that recognized, and has earned the cache that allows them to sell out on a few pieces. The half-assed-nature of the work itself is an artistic statement of sorts, that “this will be successful because I’m already successful, and rather pointedly, not on its own merits…but on mine.” That succeeds only as a result of the kind of prior success that I long to have (and kinda did in one esoteric place one time, and want to have again in a larger, more useful area). That’s what I identify with, and while I don’t strive to sell out, I strive to be able to sell out in the ways that Hirst and many, many others have earned their ability to if they choose—I strive to have the authority and success upon which to sell out, not to sell out, itself. That is a fundamentally different approach to valuing popular crap, and I long to be recognized widely enough and regarded highly enough to be able to get away with it if I choose (which of course, I would never do…oh no, not ever…and certainly haven’t to date, nevermind my prior admission…).

Me: What work do you most enjoying doing?

Dave: Reloading. I really enjoy making my own ammunition.

Me: What’s your strongest memory of your childhood?

Dave: If you stretch childhood to include being 16 years and 2 months old, then: maiming myself in a foreign country in the name of love, being spurned by that love, subsequently kidnapped from the hospital, and integrated into an intriguing family of goth kids and their long-suffering parents during the remainder of my convalescence, during which time I learned how to drink like a German. There was really no way I was going to become a normal office drone after that kind of summer vacation.

Me: What themes do you pursue?

Dave: Identity. Self-invention. Self-determination. Discovery. Freedom. Change. And to each of those, append: “…and their surprising costs.”

Me: What’s your scariest experience?

Dave: Getting sucked out to sea in a riptide that pulled me beneath the surf and dragged me across the ocean floor about 100 yards before spitting me out in the Atlantic. That kinda sucked. Lesser scary at the time, because progressive oxygen deprivation makes you slap-happy and tired rather than terrified, was developing pulmonary edema in the Himalayas (pulmonary edema is where your lungs fill up with fluid and you slowly drown on dry land) and having to medivac myself down the mountain to a shitty third world cesspool named Phaplu, with the second worst air strip I’ve ever bounced down, for an emergency medical flight back to Kathmandu. That also kinda sucked. Most of my best stories, I would have avoided if at the time I knew what I was in for. Ce est la vie…

Me: What’s your favorite work whether it be art or writing related?

Dave: Hunter S. Thompon’s debut essay “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” and his debut book “Hell’s Angels,” for what they meant for journalism and narrative nonfiction, for their glorious execution, for the particular type of research they required, and for their elegance, eloquence, and value. If I write one book near to either piece’s accomplishments, in my entire life, my life will have been worthwhile. Thompson wrote several such books (“Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72” being one of ‘em, though it was more a compilation than long-form narrative nonfiction). I toil in his long, long shadow, but rather than be the next Hunter S. Thompson, I want to be the first Dave Norman.

Me: Describe a real-life situation that inspired you?

Dave: The birth of my son. The way the light caught in my wife’s hair on our wedding day. The… No, just kidding. That time I had machine guns jammed into my ribs by terrified, screaming palace guards in Nepal—that inspired one of my favorite short stories I’ve written.

Me: What’s your most embarrassing moment? 

Dave: It would be answering this question, if I did it honestly.

Me: What jobs have you done other than being an artist/writer/traveler?

Dave: Mowed lawns. Private detective work. Light carpentry. Mad scientist for Scenario Systems, the nation’s premier innovator in pneumatic payload delivery (I invented, built, and sold, air-powered canons).

Me: What memorable responses have you had to your work?

Dave: I was accosted at a book reading by a man who was so mad he was shaking, so rude he was shocking, and so unhinged that I legitimately feared for my safety and that of those attending my reading. He attacked my writing, then attacked (verbally) me, and made it clear that he was my rival (and insinuated that he was my superior). Hilarity did not ensue. In retrospect, it’s kind of flattering. I also hope that whatever rock he crawled out from under, has since collapsed on top of him.

Me: What food, drink, song inspires you?

Dave: Food: German food. Drink: beer, the more pretentious the better. Absinthe. Coffee brandy and raw milk.

Me: Is the artistic/journalistic life lonely? What do you do to counteract it?

Dave: Very. But it’s nice when I can come out of the creative space, and find a warm, wonderful family waiting, along with some of the best friends a guy could ever ask for. I have the most amazing support network for my work, and myself personally. That allows me to dive really deep into the lonely places I have to be to be free enough to create...’cause I have a healthy, supportive place to come back to. Before that, well…it can get pretty dark. And that’s useful—never underestimate that—but it’s also pretty horrible after a few weeks. I’m much better off now, and if my work suffers, it’s worth it. One of the premier risks of being a journalist—which is part of why I don’t pursue straight journalism as the totality of my creation—is what it does to your spirit and mind to be a successful journalist. While I’ve seen this in myself a bit, I’ve seen this *a lot* in the proper, full-time journalists I’ve run across: to speak truth to power, to illuminate the worst of society’s true evils (often with the personal mission of stopping their perpetrators), to discover injustice and explain it in terms both accurate and compelling enough to motivate people to overcome the injustice and the institutions fostering it—in other words, to pursue the highest callings of journalism—you need to be a quarrelsome, pugnacious sort who distrusts everyone, seeks the absolute worst in people and situations, and is on a hell-bent journey to tackle the dirty and shameful secret parts of society. It takes a special kind of person to want to do that…and doing that, has a very profound effect on you. Imagine the kind of person who looks at a politician, a corporate executive, a social leader, and thinks “alright, a-hole, what are you really doing? Why are you really doing it? I can’t trust the commercial you’re going to sell me in this interview, so how can I make you squirm and reveal your true intentions? This is my interview—not your unpaid-for advertisement—so I’m going to have fun with you…and see how can I tell this story to the people you’re certainly exploiting so that they’ll be able to stop you.” Hard-nose, traditional journalists earn a lot of enemies; I earned a few in the very limited hard-nosed journalism I did. People lie to you constantly. People don’t want to hear what you have to say, either, when it challenges their sense of comfort and security. Those who are exposed by your research, will do just about everything they can to thwart you from learning what they, their company, campaign, family, etc, is really trying to accomplish. Dealing with such an outlook, and dealing with such people in that way, has a very unhealthy effect on journalists. I’ve run into my share of the dark side of straight journalism just enough to know that it’s best tackled by people other than me—my niche is more celebratory of the good, revealing of the interesting, the product of my search for meaning and understanding and good beer…and less the truth-to-power kind of writing that holds leaders accountable and somewhat in line. Spend time with a full-time, serious-news journalist, and…well, have fun with that. The ones I’ve met are not terribly cuddly, don’t have many close friends, and see themselves as apart from society (and dynamically opposed to it, so that they can take an outsider’s tact in understanding and dissecting it—another requirement of the perspective that drives the trade, and destroys its practitioners over time). It does something to your mind, your spirit, to be immersed full time in opposition, and beset on all sides by people who want to misdirect or stop you, in the service of telling truth to those who often don’t want to hear it. The result is some pretty effin’ miserable people. There’s a reason that the stereotype of a journalist is a bitter, divorced, chain-smoking alcoholic spitting vitriol into their typewriter. That caricature is not so much the kind of person drawn to journalism, but rather, the kind of person created by being one too long without tempering oneself. There’s something nihilistic in writers in general, and serious journalists in particular, that self-selects the most intelligent and often most self-destructive among writers to become journalists. The rest is just the natural progression for the job…

My approach to writing is more of a critical, close look at personal character, cause-and-effect, and our places in society—it’s not aimed at specific people, but at the human condition, and other impossibly grandiose things. I try to write about my specific experiences and insights, in a general way that hopefully appeals to and is accessible to others. When I write about having an accident, being in the hospital, and a love gone sour in the process, for example, I try to write about the way our plans can be foiled, our hearts broken, and then, we find greater order in the pattern of events and deeper personal meaning in our experiences. In that way, I try to liberate my experiences from the esoteric things that happen to me, and try to find the level at which they are the things that happen to everyone. The humor comes from the telling of the story, and the peculiar details; the meaning comes from the themes that apply to the readers’ lives, as well as the lives of the subjects in my essays and stories. My favorite writing operates on two levels in exactly that way: I can laugh at the character/narrator and feel safely distant from them because, hey, it’s their story…while secretly, being deeply affected because their story is exactly one that I’ve lived in my own life. Bam: that deeper level makes it worth my time reading, and affects me as a reader. The rest is just humorous packaging. That’s the kind of writing I try to do—speak truth to the most personal parts of our characters and lives, and if anything, create a little safe place where we can laugh and cry at ourselves. It’s less “screw this person in particular, and here’s why” and more “hey, this is the weird way I’m broken, and whaddayaknow, you’re broken a bit in this way too, but it’s okay—let’s talk about me, here, so it’s not so personal that you shut down and turn away. And isn’t it hilarious, this weird way we as people act? I mean, yikes, right?” In my commercial articles, I try to do this, too, but more often, engage in celebratory writing: less the “this is how XYZ party is corrupt,” and more “hey, this place is awesome and this is why you should go there.” One of my most formative experiences came from an editor, when I asked him “Why don’t we ever publish a negative review of gear, or an event, in our magazine?” He said: “In one paragraph—in one sentence—you can tell a person not to buy or try a thing, and convince them. The rest of the article, then, is redundant, wasted space. Nevermind that it pisses off the advertisers. The better use of space, for the reader, takes a look at something that is worth their time, and shows them why they should care, how they can benefit from or utilize the thing, and what they might enjoy trying. That’s more engaging, and much more useful.” With that bit of advice, I was diverted from a journalist’s life-long, soul-damaging pursuit of bringing the negative to light, and redirected towards a professional life of finding the good, the interesting, the humorous, the useful-in-positive-ways, and writing about it. In that moment, Dan Reeves explained to me both the economic relevance, and the value-added benefits, of seeking the light over the darkness…and my writing, perspective, and career, have been forever changed. I’m working on a novel that turns on that moment, actually.

Me: What do you dislike about the art/journalistic world?

Dave: The pay is lousy. Everything that I just discussed about the effect it has on journalists (and other writers, too). Also, it’s hard to have peers who are also writers, because either I hate their work because it’s horribly inferior to my own and thus I think they should give it up entirely and go sell insurance, or I hate their work because it’s far better than my own and I really don’t want to quit and go sell insurance. It’s exhausting to divide other writers into those two camps, and terrible when I (frequently) have to admit a person is better than me, because I’m hyper-competitive about things I really, really care about. Like writing.

Me: What do you dislike about your work?

Dave: The pay is lousy. There is absolutely no guarantee of success based on merit—success in the marketplace has something to do with merit, but a lot more to do with connections and other advantages that are peculiar to a given writer. Success with art has never been solely, or even primarily, about merit, though we all default to thinking that it is, and most reasonable people think that it should be. I promise you, there is no company, no agent, no publisher, reading the tens of millions of stories and essays and manuscripts written each year, and elevating the best to be published. Not even a fraction of that work is ever read by anyone who can help it reach an audience beyond the people the writer forces it upon. If you honestly think that David Sedaris is a sufficiently better writer than the humor writers who aren’t published, and that’s most of why he’s published and they’re not, you have an impossibly wrong understanding of what it takes to get published. We get crap in the marketplace for all kinds of reasons that have more to do with access to decision makers at publishing houses and media companies, than with merit. That’s backwards. It always has been backwards like that, but that realization that the broken system has always been broken only makes it worse. If all writing that a writer meant for public acknowledgement was reviewed, and only the best selected among it for publication, we would have a much higher standard of discourse in this country, and in the world…and much funnier books, more poignant books, and more worthwhile articles. I could stand to never be published, if I wasn’t published because my writing is crap. Rather, my unpublished pieces aren’t published because of some confluence of many reasons I can’t and won’t ever be able to understand, which includes the likelihood that most of it is crap. What I want, though, and no writer or market has ever had, is a fair shot for the work to be evaluated on its own merit and either selected for that merit or damned for its lack. I’d rather have my work come to nothing because it never amounted to anything, than because it simply didn’t reach the right person at the right time.

So, instead of a merit-based system, we get the most marketable of whatever is presented to decision-makers, while truly, deeply, amazingly talented people outside of New York and San Francisco (etc) toil largely in obscurity, with so much to say of substance and merit. I know some of them, and a few among the very best deserve to have Tom Clancy-level recognition and J.K. Rowling-level success…but they haven’t gotten much yet. And probably won’t, because they don’t have agents or an editor’s ear or an in with the right media company. Knowing that, seeing it intimately in the world of professional writing, is equal parts heartbreaking, infuriating, and devastating to one’s desire to continue at all. Imagine if you had a job where you had to show up pretty much every day, pour your heart and soul into your work, take risks, sometimes actually risk your life (or just reputation), but that every day you went to work knowing that you probably wouldn’t get paid, and that only your family and a few friends would acknowledge that you even went to work at all…but that someday, maybe, the right middle-manager would take note of what you’ve been doing all along and spontaneously pay you a portion of your back wages and make you Employee of the Month kinda out of nowhere. Would you take that job?

I sure as hell hope not.

But, that’s so much of being a writer/artist…

As a guy who lacks connections beyond niche industry publications (where I make enough money to justify my economic participation in my family’s welfare), I focus on my art, so that I actually have a body of work to be discovered if, someday by some miracle, someone happens to discover it and find it worthy of a second look. The thing that I dislike about my work is that the odds of that happening are extremely, extremely long…while David Sedaris can sell whatever drivel he wrings out of his dysfunctional childhood.

Me: What do you like about your work?

Dave: It makes me laugh. It sometimes makes me cry. It always makes me look more closely at the world, at my relationships, and the cause-and-effect underlying the interactions of just about everything. It is my reason for living. Researching, integrating, then writing—experiencing, then packaging in a meaningful way—is the work I am put on this planet to do. Everything else is wonderful, and in support of that work. It is why I am alive.

Me: What makes you angry?

Dave: Having meat stuck in my teeth with no hope of flossing for hours.

Me: What brings you profound joy?

Dave: Writing. Sunsets over the ocean. Fireworks.

Me: What research to you do, if any?

Dave: Lots, and lots. I try to have deep conversations with as many people as I can, and try to really listen to them—I don’t have to invent so much about the world in my fiction, if I already know a lot about what goes on in the hearts and minds of people in our real one. Then it’s just a matter of repackaging, and mining that understanding for meaning and to create relationships. It’s even more obvious how its utility serves me in my nonfiction writing. Most enjoyable: traveling abroad, to research things like the Trans Siberian Railroad (“Following Josh,” 2011) and the music scene in Cuba (“Hearing Damage in Havana,” essay), etc. I’ve been to 48 states (missing ND and AK) and 24 countries, including extensive travel through Asia and Eastern Europe. All of it has been for research.

Me: What superpower would you have and why?

Dave: The ability to consciously affect probability. It’s the only one I need. “Probability that I will find $100,000 in a suitcase at this airport: 100%. Probability that no one will notice I’m late to this party: 100%. Probability that I’ll die horribly in a car wreck: 0%.” Etc.

Me: Name something you love, and why.

Dave: My rifle. It’s an exquisite piece of engineering, built with principles of physics that I actually understand and can explain—it’s a demystified, mysterious device. It’s also more dependable than any human I’ve ever known, and is completely without prejudice, malice, or intention. Without me (or another person), it’s useless. I give it meaning. To anthropomorphize a weapon unnecessarily, that I give it purpose and meaning by merely existing, is pretty trippy for the ego.

Me: Name something you don’t love, and why.

Dave: Tipping. Why the hell should I pay someone $1 to pull a lever on a beer tap? On a $4 beer, that’s 25% extra. Would you abide a 25% additional tax on things you purchase? Of course not! There’d be a revolution. But attack the convention of tipping, and you’re branded a selfish asshole, unless you couch it in terms of “given them even more money by creating a living wage,” which is the only way that a person is allowed to publicly attack tipping. Which is also bullshit. It boils down to a 25% tax that you’re not allowed to criticize without suffering worse repercussions than a taciturn barkeep ignoring subsequent drink orders. A dollar to pull a lever? Goodbye job, hello robot, and not soon enough. I love traveling in countries where tipping isn’t a thing (which is partly due to paying decent wages to bar staff being a thing—there, I couched my criticism in sufficiently PC terms, right?).

Me: What is your dream project?

Dave: To work on a language update of Coryat’s Crudities, which is widely considered to be the first published travelogue, and to do so in a project that brings into the text some of my story in discovering that form and grappling with that particular text—to work on modernizing the original travelogue, with a parallel narrative about my development as a travelogue writer as well. That he discusses trips through India (a rich and vivid place I’ve travelled through and written about) is particularly interesting. I can do something with that angle, too. What, I don’t know yet—I haven’t started the project. But I have a copy of the Crudities, and I have pen and paper, so…

Me: Name three artists/writers/travelers you’d like to be compared to.

Dave: Hunter S. Thompson, Bill Bryson, Gay Talese.

Me: Favorite or most inspirational place?

Dave: Mount Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, New Hampshire. Second: Eastern Promenade, Portland, Maine. Third: the tea houses of Namche Bazaar, Namche, Nepal.

Me: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

Dave: “Move!” shouted at me by a man driving a runaway golf cart downhill, right at me.

Me: Oh boy! That was good advice!

Me: Professionally, what’s your goal?

Dave: Fill the shelf behind my head in my studio with my own published work, and have none of it be crap.

Me: What couldn’t you do without?

Dave: Air. Tried it several times, didn’t last more than a few minutes.

Dave has always made me laugh! His writing I love, and it's never a dull moment around him.  I hope you've enjoyed getting to know Dave a little better. I hope you get a chance to stop by Amazon and pick up one of his books. I promise you that if you love adventure books, with crazy twists and turns, you will LOVE 'Following Josh.' I know I did. I want to take the time to thank Dave for going first! That's a huge step in a new process, but as you can see by his answers he's adventurous, and I didn't expect anything less! 

 Dave has one more thing to offer my readers: 

Additional notes: If you want more biographical information on me for an intro, etc, here are a few facts beyond the scope of Facebook:

Dave Norman

Age: low thirties

Writing since: 1986

First paid, published piece: 2001

Books published: 4.

            501 Paintball Tips, Tricks, and Tactics, 2008 www.501paintballtips.com

            White River Junctions, 2011 www.whiteriverjunctions.com

            Following Josh, 2011 www.followingjosh.com

            A Small Town Celebration, 2012 www.davenorman.net

Articles published: over 2,000

Short stories published: 10+

Literary magazines published in, include: Wood Smoke, Janus, Lightnin’ Ridge, Ad Libitum

Trade magazines published in, include: Action Pursuit Games, Facefull, Jungle, Paintball Sports International, Gun World, Firepower, Complete Book of Rimfires, Combat Handguns, Concealed Carry Handguns, Home Defender, Tactical World

Book talks given: 20+ across 4 states

Degrees: Master’s from Dartmouth, Bachelor’s from Westminster College

Most unique book talk given: On a train through White River Junction, Vermont, with all the windows open and no one able to hear my voice above the diesel engine and wind.

Farthest afield I’ve traveled: circled the globe. Spent a week in Mongolia, nearly died in each of Nepal, India, China, and Germany. I’ve played paintball in 5 countries.

Currently lives in: Cape Elizabeth, Maine, near a lighthouse